The Our Voice Podcast | Episode 08 : Ben & Jerry’s (Par… — Transcript

[Music] [Applause] [Music]

Hey, hey, hey, what's up y'all? Welcome to the Our Voice podcast. Excited you're with us tonight. My name is Neil Voles, and I am Desmond Mead. This show is a show for returning citizens. This is a show that talks about our lives. This is a show that talks about what's really going on, but beyond the headlines and gets into the nitty-gritty of what the kind of this work is all about. You know, what, what's going on in the community? Yeah.

I'm excited. Hey, this is definitely what it says, right? Our Voice, right? So we don't need the experts to speak on our behalf. We don't need the doctors and the so-called professionals to speak on our behalf.

That we have a voice, and it is so many great people across the country who've been impacted by the criminal justice system who have a loud and amazing voice and are doing amazing things. And this show is designed to amplify our voices, those voices across the country, as well as the voices of people who have been amazing allies or amazing fighters on the front line for social justice and criminal justice and racial justice and all kinds of other justices.

People who have realized that there is value in each and every one of us as a human being.

No, that's right, Desmond. Man, I could not be more excited. You know me, it's almost like every show I got to get out there and just get too excited about our guests and, you know, break the silence on who we got getting ready to show up.

Yeah, but I mean, you can't keep the secret, man.

Yeah, you can't.

You can't keep a secret, man. Go ahead. If you, if you know, because listen, man, every show we've had amazing guests, man. You know, last week it was, what last show? It was Anquan Bowden, right? That was a great coverage. That was amazing. And then we had Norris Henderson. We got some great guests that's upcoming. But today, two nights on this show tonight, tonight, man, we got our alter egos or our counterparts, right?

That's right. Instead of Neil and Desmond, we got who? We got Ben and Jerry.

No, no, the man and Jerry Bennett. What's going on, guys? And Chris Miller is also joining the crew. And not Tom and Jerry, right? But Ben and Jerry. And tonight, you know, my wife is gonna hate this because she's always on me about being fit and losing weight a little here and there. But tonight, man, we're gonna have an official taste-off of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

I have my favorite here. Neil, would you guess which one is my favorite?

I know how much you like justice. Uh-huh. I'm guessing that, you know, the Justice ReMix?

No, no, it's not actually my favorite. My favorite is Cherry Garcia. I go crazy with Cherry Garcia. And the strawberry cheesecake is not too far behind. But tonight, we're gonna see if this new ice cream by Ben and Jerry called Justice ReMix could handle, right? Could handle the taste buds the way Cherry Garcia and strawberry cheesecake handles it. But you know what? We got the folks that brought that, that created Ben and Jerry's on this show. And Neil, I think I'm gonna do, we want you, wanna do your icebreaker?

Yeah, I'd love to do the icebreaker one. I just wanna say welcome to Ben, Jerry, to Chris, who's the head of global activism at Ben and Jerry's. And we kind of like to do little icebreakers and just kick the conversation off. So

He's lying. We don't like to do it, but he's doing it just for you guys. Go ahead.

That's a fair point. Fair point. So if it's all right, we're just going to jump in this conversation, y'all, and

We've got this icebreaker where, in 2016, right, ice cream breaker, not icebreaker. Ice cream breaker. That was supposed to be the joke. Man, Jesus Christ, man, our production team worked overtime to get this right for you, Neil. Come on, man. Let's do this.

Let's take two, man. We got an ice cream breaker here. There you go. That's exactly right. So here it is, right? In 2016,

Both you, Ben and Jerry, you guys were arrested at a Democracy Awakening protest in Washington, D.C. for protesting voter rights among other issues. So wait a minute, so Ben and Jerry's are technically members of the FRC?

I knew it.

I knew it, and they haven't been paying their dues. Man, we got to get on that one about that. Listen, we're going to get to that later. But you know, Ben, Jerry, you know, are you willing to share about what that experience was like and how it informed your desire to fight for more inclusive democracy?

Well, you know, we feel really passionate about the idea that everybody should be able to vote and also the idea that it is a democracy or it's supposed to be a democracy and politicians are supposed to do what the people want them to do. But under our current system, with corporations and ultra-rich people making these huge political donations, they're pretty much listening to the money instead of the people. And that's what we were protesting. We were protesting it as much as a citizen can do, which is to commit civil disobedience, to break the law because the law is unjust. Was that your first involvement in social justice reform or advocacy?

I was, I'm actually a three-time offender. You know, the first time I ended up in jail was protesting going to war in Iraq before we went to war in Iraq, obviously. I was not successful.

And the second time I was with Jerry, who's really, if you ever got to get busted and end up in jail, Jerry is the best person to be with me.

Why is Jerry the guy? I think that's what that was. But Jerry, go ahead. What was your experience with Ben getting arrested, and why is it so great to get arrested with you?

It is great to be arrested together. You know, it sounds probably better than it really was. I mean, Ben and I were out protesting with people that had already been in touch with the authorities, so they knew we were going to be protesting. We knew we were going to be arrested, so it was not chaotic or violent in any way.

And so in that regard, I mean, it was a really important issue to be fighting over. But in terms of really, I don't know, gumming up the system or driving real interest, I don't think we were really successful.

In that, in some ways, it was more symbolic than anything else. But the time before that, the time before that when we got arrested, we actually ended up in jail behind bars, reading the scrolls that the people there before us left.

Wow, really?

Yeah.

And so that's very interesting. You said you were reading the scrolls that were left behind about people that were there previously. What were some of the things that may have just like touched you that you read?

I think they were pretty much just writing their names, and it was pretty much painted over.

Wow. And you know, I'm thinking about this because we had, I had a discussion yesterday about humanizing people. And you know, I'm assuming that in seeing those names on the wall, that they became people and not inmates or just another number.

Yeah, I think being there in that same cell, we kind of felt, we had a little feeling for what it would be like for somebody who was really in jail and, you know, got arrested, didn't plan on getting arrested. And yeah, it kind of really brought it home.

Well, I think the other thing for us, so you know, Ben and I are kind of white business guys, and things are not really probably going to get out of hand for us the way they might be for other people. But I can tell you that when we weren't handcuffed, but we had, I guess, we had our hands zip-tied behind our backs. And when they zip-tie your hands and they put you in the paddy wagon, you pretty much realize the authorities can do whatever they damn well please, and there's really not much you can do about it. And they can either play by the rules or they cannot play by the rules.

Wow. I think that is something that we're going to touch on a little bit later on in our podcast. But Chris Miller, you know, Neil, sa—

you know neil said that you are the head of global activism at ben and jerry's and so my question to you chris has ever been a time when ben and jerry's kind of like corrupted you and brought you into

their shenanigans well i i in fact was arrested alongside ben jerry in that 2016 democracy awakening uh uh protest it it actually one and i think ben had already been taken into custody and jerry and i were sort of removed from the capitol

steps and it is one of the best images of my career is this picture of jerry and i being escorted off the capitol steps by the capitol police with the capitol dome protesters and these you know big capital police vehicles and it's this it

ended up being i think the picture that went along with the the kind of written piece we wrote about it but i i i am i will concur with mr cohen that uh uh you know being detained with jerry is

you know he's he's a good guy to be detained with wow well one of the things i find interesting too is as we talked and we're kind of like joking uh but then you know we started talking about that

experience of being inside and seeing the scrolls and and names of of people and i think the tone of our conversation changed a little bit so it does feel like i i'm so in awe of what you guys do

with your platform and and how intentional you are um and how lively like you you can connect so well but i also just even in that moment sounds like that that was a transformative moment in terms of just kind of a a real

connection with uh with what what people can go through even as you said it was you know uh unique in the uh the experience that you had but i mean i wondered neil if it started there you know um

and ben and jerry this question is actually for you too you know did that spirit of advocacy was it developed uh in your uh more seasoned age or or did does it stem from something that was imparted in you probably have kids

growing up i like this guy he doesn't call us old he calls us seasoned he's very cool listen hey i'm angling for ice cream name man so just know that uh you know i i think that uh working for justice uh protesting

injustice uh is something that uh came to us growing up in the 60s protesting the war in vietnam and protesting uh the racial violence and [Music] so uh you know i think it came to us kind of pretty early on

and then if so you had that kind of going all along one thing that's that oh go ahead go ahead man i was going to say uh you know it it it's something that was uh as ben said the time we were

growing up we we were kind of college age around then with the war in vietnam and uh civil rights movement and there was the women's webloop movement uh but i think things switched for us after we became business

people because we realized first of all how much power that business has in this country and also uh when you have a platform as uh you know ben and i have to a certain degree from being business people and being

uh names that are that are common in the in the culture then you really can have a much bigger impact uh if you're willing to put yourself on the line you know i'll tell you something that really struck me uh as we started

getting more and more into racial justice work is that when i was uh you know probably around 19 i was smoking a joint uh on the beach with some friends and um you know we're smoking underneath some lifeguard stand and passing it around

and we see these two big lights coming at us and i said you know hey eat the j you know the cops and the cops came and you know uh they looked around and they found this j uh you know on the sand and they

uh arrested us and handcuffed us and and took us to the station and strip searched us and uh you know eventually we ended up getting off with a ticket for littering a lighted cigarette butt on the beach and

as we started doing this work you know and and for us at the time you know that was yeah that's what happens and when we started doing this work we realized that if we were not white guys from a middle

class background we would have been in jail we would have been in jail we would have had a record we wouldn't have been able to get uh a small business loan and there never would have been a ben

and juries that's powerful right there yeah remind me your story about your friend with the with the phone when you had that moment you know for yourself no that's right yeah part of my story you guys is that uh i

just days before i met desmond i had a really kind of transformative conversation with some friends of mine who i was doing ministry work with in southwest florida and one of the young guys that we were working with got uh

he was at mcdonald's and he saw a phone sitting there at the drink dispenser he took it he put it on his phone or in his back pocket next day law enforcement shows up uh puts him in jail he ends up

getting force fed a plea agreement a felony and he is in jail for 45 days i'm telling you and his the family has allowed me to share their story his mom called one night and was just overwhelmed with what was going on

and i never seen her like that she was one of the strongest most amazing women i've ever met and she called and just kind of broke down and i hung up the phone i looked at my wife and it just that was the moment

that it really hit me that i was like my goodness if uh if fred looked like me grew up you know in the suburbs of tampa or naples rather than uh where he grew up uh in in fort myers he'd be having an

entirely different experience and there's very few days that go by in this work in terms of when we're in the community and talking to folks when i don't think about my own story you know i had the financial resources to to to

fight i ultimately got my felony conviction and i'm a returning citizen and and i love everybody that i come across but it's very clear that uh even in today's society no matter what other folks say that there is a difference

between my friends who are black their life experience in america and mine so i'm resonating it's resonating very strongly with me what you guys are saying yeah so um ben and jerry you know you guys uh and we're gonna talk more about you

know uh what they call corporate social responsibility um but um you know there's thousands of groups that's out there uh in the country that's doing amazing work around you know different forms of of of advocacy whether it's around social

justice criminal justice racial justice uh environmental justice um but immigration uh but and there's like i said thousands of organizations out there uh but you guys formed a relationship with frc um and my question is what was it

that attracted you to frrc make you want to support the work that we were doing yeah maybe we can have uh chris talk about that since he chris is most i mean i'll be really brief but there is

a story behind it and that is that every year um we gather as a sort of ben and jerry's staff and a community of franchisees and scoop shop managers and i guess it would have been in of 2018

we were in orlando florida and uh you know a good friend of ours and and someone that we worked with uh phillip agnew was was at the meeting and we've done some work with with dream defenders and phillips said

there's this amazing effort that's happening in florida this grassroots sort of campaign to get this amendment on to the ballot and you have to meet desmond he's incredible and you guys need to support the work uh of desmond and frc and

that's that's how it happened and i mean it's so often that's that's the way this work happens is it's it's through a relationship a connection but you drove over desmond and we we sat in the in the i think the bar at the hotel

in orlando and you told us your story and you you told us you know the plan for for amendment 4 and you know there was no way we were going to get behind it it was it was uh

you know it was so in line with everything we wanted to be supporting out in the world and so it's it was you know we we are incredibly you know grateful to a small part of you know what you and frc and everybody in

florida were able to do in 2018. listen we're we're so appreciative i remember even with jay and brody you know uh i mean it was an amazing uh a group of folks especially from corporate but also even the the the shop

owners and the uh the scoopers and the folks that was at that convening and you guys have been so supportive over the years uh and so chris i mean really tell me you know when amendment 4 passed man how did you

feel how did the folks have been in jerry field i mean it was incredible i mean i remember jabari you know was was we were somewhere jabari had your facebook live stream up and there was a whole group of us

watching it i mean people really connected with this issue because it so often not not always but in many cases the work that we do doesn't have a date by which you know if you won or lost right it's it's a it's a

struggle to make change over time often it's incremental you know an effort like this [Music] really captured people i think at the company because we were all building towards a date right and we knew that on election night we were going to know

whether this passed or didn't pass and and so i think people felt invested in it to your point desmond we had we had great support from our independent school governors in florida who you know showed up at events and you know and it

you know helped you all you know build a little bit of buzz and excitement around your your events by giving away free ice cream um and so people felt invested in it and i think probably if you asked people who are at

the company now to kind of reflect back on the work that we've done over the last you know bunch of years on on issues around racial justice and inequity i i think this would be the the thing and the issue and and that

night um watching the results come in and seeing what was a dramatic win right two-thirds of voters in florida i mean nonpartisan that it did better than i think any of the other statewide candidates on the ballot so it is an

incredible thing that happened and so people felt really proud to know that that that you know we had a very small part in something very big oh well i just want to say you guys had a big impact um

thinking about all those events going across the state we had our bus you know and there would be your scoopers and your you're the head of your companies um who were amazing i have one specific memory right because really powerful uh

moment for me was in st augustine um we had a town hall and it was at the st paul amy church which is where dr king spoke and um at the end of the town hall there was a gentleman who got up and he

shared this this story with us that uh he had been there when dr king spoke and he wanted to be at this specific town hall he listened to what everybody had to say he was the last speaker and

he just got up and said i want you guys to know i know in my heart of hearts that if dr king was alive today this is what he'd be doing and my hair is standing up on my uh arms right now just

like it was that day and i remember walking out into the area where everybody was gathered near the uh the bus and stuff and there were people scooping ice cream there were people registering to vote there were people

getting information about memphis four and i was like man this is what that whole thing feels like so i'm just having immense gratitude for the company for all your folks here in florida y'all are amazing those are some of the best

scenes i mean even you know with the photographs that we have during the campaign even up to now right we we just launched our um uh ready set vote hbcu bus tour to where we're visiting all of the historical

black colleges and universities in the state of florida and we're engaging students getting them registered to vote we're engaging people in the communities around the community and getting them registered to the voter helping them pay our fines and

fees and ben and jerry's are right there with us and at our first event at florida memorial uh university ben and jerry was there with us at the football game and scooping up that ice cream and and tell

you folks it's like a magnet mm-hmm you know it's like i mean it's like a guy that walks around with a baby or a puppy you don't have the chick magnet man listen uh social justice uh activism magnet is ben and jerry's

i'm pop listen ben jerry chris i'm popping open this strawberry shortcake right now oh i'm gonna get it you get the cherry just wave that around i mean i got a spoon and i guess when they answer the next question we can go ahead

and taste that's this thing here right geez you know if if i knew this was going to be an ice cream party i would have had a couple of pines in front of me too hey you have an unlimited supply you

should oh yeah you should be able to turn around it's not exactly right here i mean do you mind if i leave for a minute and get myself get some ice cream get yourself some ice cream i have permission here you talk to

jerry i'll be back i love it and i have this imaginary idea that you guys are surrounded by ice cream all the time like yeah so jerry since ben has stepped off since ben has stepped off here's a

question why is it so important for large corporations to continue supporting organizations like ours right who are committed to creating a more equitable society and humane re-entry system well i i'm happy to answer that i just want to go back for a second because

you know i don't want to leave ice cream because there is something special about ice cream and ben and jerry's very very lucky in that we're able to communicate with people about really important issues and do it with ice cream and do it in a

way that is fun and opens people's hearts and minds and stomachs uh and it it's it's a great connector ice cream it's a wonderful thing uh and he's very very spoon so you know the the other thing that's that's great

about working with you guys and you're talking about the campaign uh you know i think one thing the campaign was stupendous at was telling stories and having it not be about a policy but having it be about people about real

live human beings and i think when when people uh you know relate to it on on that level it makes it much more important and you know the other thing about working with you guys and and chris can

probably talk much more about this is that ben and jerry's needs to be working with groups that are on the ground who are the real experts and know what they're doing ben and jerry's has certain uh oh i don't know

skills we bring ice cream we're able to communicate and whatever but we need to partner with the people who really are on the ground doing the work and it's it's you guys that make it possible for us to really

be involved in issues wow you know i'm glad you said that you have a lot more experience with this about you know the groups that ben and jerry's work with and and how critical that is well chris before you say that let me

just add this one point because chris you brought up a fact about where we first met and how ben and jerry's was introduced to frc let me tell you i left that uh a gathering that convention the convening

of of ben and jerry's employees with a key question in my head how in the hell does ice cream help the work that i'm doing or help activism right and i i i could not really figure it out

right but you all actually answered that question from me over time showing me how and i got to experience it by you know sharing a uh uh get you know getting a scoop of ice cream and having a

conversation with with someone who now has the time to have that conversation around voting that ice cream is a a tool to use to bring people together and to engage have them engage in conversation and get in proximity with each other and

learn more about each other and and that allowed us a real uh a genuine opportunity to uh do some deep uh what they call a relational organizing rather than everything just being transactions created that environment for those conversations and

i love what you said about putting people first because that's exactly what you're doing when you're having a conversation with somebody over ice cream yeah yeah so you know i i think the other thing that uh teaming up with

uh you know a business like ben and jerry's is that ben and jerry's ends up lending its credibility and its mainstreamness to an issue that uh you know a lot of people don't see as you know that people see as fringe or

you know they think about the usual suspects that it's you know the those those fringy uh i don't know activists but you know when uh when a corporation lends its uh name and its credibility then i think uh

others you know it makes it easier for the for members of the public to to get involved it's kind of co-branding i mean we talk about it as you know two businesses work together and you know they call it co-branding

that you know one business brings their customers and the other business brings the other and they both get new customers and so we're trying to co-brand with you guys that uh hopefully we bring our you know the people that buy our ice

cream to to you to your organization and to your issue well listen i got this good tasting eye let me tell you this strawberry short cheesecake is the bomb all right you got all this good ice cream here i think what ben got

his ice cream right i think it's time for us to take a very very short ice cream break right because neil has been dying to eat his ice cream so i'm gonna let him get one scoop of uh

are we going new ones jerry garcia so we're not gonna go in one scoop yeah then after you do that one scoop of justice uh remix right and then once you do that then we can roll over into the second half of this

show how about that all right so we're gonna end with a taste test uh a slash ice cream break yep here we go go ahead neal ah look at that that's good stuff so now we're back justice remix

jumping into the justin i got a confession to make i don't feel like i'm a very good uh activist and i apologize to say this on this podcast i loved your roll out of of this new ice cream i

haven't had it yet you have it wow no i actually decided one was actually shipped to my home and i think that this is the best way to start so you had it you didn't show i didn't want to eat it until i

got an opportunity to have ben and jerry on the pocket i was protesting this is my former protester and so now that we have ben and jerry's on the podcast i can finally taste justice remix and it's a perfect

segue into part two of our podcast where we're going to be talking about uh police accountability and we're going to be talking about even some more justice related topics uh that ben and jerry's have been involved in oh

man i know we need to talk about this i i'm intrigued with how you make ice cream i i i taste like a little pop-tart in there or something like with some spice ah this is good des dig in man

[Applause]